Join us on 25 November 2026 at 5 PM for a discussion with Dr Ali Altaf Mian about his new book, Islamic Ethics and Spiritual Sovereignty: Genres of Tradition in Muslim South Asia (University of Notre Dame Press, 2026). The event will take place in the Atrium Common Room at the Aga KhanA title granted by the Shah of Persia to the then Ismaili Imam in 1818 and inherited by each of his successors to the Imamate. Centre, with the option to attend online via Zoom.
This book works through multiple genres of the Islamic tradition to address the following questions: How is the practice of religious rituals already a political act and a movement of justice? What do bodies share between themselves as they learn and convey rituals and genres? Is this mode of teaching and transmission akin to a form of love called transference? How does transference ease identification with ethical exemplars? Do transference and identification make it easier to manage the self and modulate the spirit? What are the political implications of ethical struggle and spiritual sovereignty?
Mian brings together Sufism and psychoanalysis to explore the possibilities and limits of translation between ritualisation and secularisation. This talk will highlight the concept and practice of love (‘ishq and mahabbat) in the Sufi tradition, examining how the tension between ‘affect’ and ‘reason’ is negotiated within in spiritual relationships through psychoanalysis calls “the fundamental fantasy”. Mian suggests that the Sufi practice of traversing fantasy represents a humble form of sovereignty, involving both seekers’ personal struggles (mujāhada) and spiritual guides’ training and tutelage (tarbiyya).
This event will be moderated by Dr. Najam Abbas and Dr. Zehra Kazmi from the South Asian Studies Unit. Copies of Dr. Mian’s books will be available for purchase at £20.
Speaker
Ali Altaf Mian
Assistant Professor
Ali Altaf Mian is the Izzat Hasan Sheikh Fellow in Islamic Studies and Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Florida. He is the author of Islamic Ethics and Spiritual Sovereignty: Genres of Tradition in Muslim South Asia (University of Notre Dame Press, 2026) and the forthcoming Muslims in South Asia (Edinburgh University Press, 2029) and the editor of The Bruce B. Lawrence Reader: Islam beyond Borders (Duke University Press, 2021). His research and teaching interests include Islam in South Asia, religion and critical theory, psychoanalysis and mysticism, gender and sexuality in religious traditions, Islam and contemporary art, and philosophical discourses on violence and displacement.
Discussants
Najam Abbas
Research Associate
Dr. Najam Abbas is a Research Associate and Editor at The Institute of Ismaili Studies. He is member of the editorial team for the 16-volume Encyclopaedia Islamica brought in partnership with Brill since 2008.
Zehra Kazmi
Research Associate
Dr. Zehra Kazmi is a Research Associate in South Asian Studies at The Institute of Ismaili Studies. She researches literary and cultural memory among South Asian Muslims and the diaspora in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
